By Mark Dovich
Violent clashes in the city of Gavar in Armenia’s eastern Gegharkunik Region earlier this week have shocked Armenia’s public, generating heated discussions on social media networks and highlighting the inability of the country’s police force to maintain public order.
On April 28, hundreds of people stormed a hospital in Gavar following a gunfight involving residents of Gavar and Noratus, a nearby village. The brawl, which resulted in the deaths of two men, with six others seriously wounded, galvanized relatives and friends of those involved to gather in front of the hospital where the injured were being treated. Amid rising tensions, the crowd then proceeded to break through police barricades and storm the hospital, ostensibly to continue attacking the injured.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which is spearheading the investigation into the incident, has revealed that members of the crowd stabbed three people in the hospital, believing they were responsible for the gunfight murders, before security forces reestablished control. All of the stabbing victims were then transferred to a medical facility in Yerevan, where several of them remain in critical condition. Additionally, the hospital’s doors and windows were heavily damaged in the attack, though no medical staff were injured, according to Minister of Health Arsen Torosyan.
As a result of the incident, the Investigative Committee has announced the arrests of at least 15 people on charges of causing mass disturbances, destruction of property, possession of illegal weapons, and murder. Meanwhile, Gnel Sanosyan, the head of Gegharkunik Region, has assured the public that police reinforcements have been sent to Gavar and Noratus and have fully reestablished public order in the area.
Despite widespread speculation both in the country’s press and on its vibrant social media networks, the initial motivation behind the gunfight remains unclear. The government has refuted a widely-publicized theory that the brawl is somehow related to the 2017 murder of Hayk Hakobyan, the son of the then-deputy head of Gegharkunik Region, Andranik Hakobyan.
Many commentators and analysts have seen the violent clashes in Gavar as a reflection of the police force’s institutional failings. For instance, in an interview with CivilNet, Armen Grigoryan, the head of Armenia’s National Security Council, argued that the incident highlighted the urgent need to reform the country’s police force.
In fact, Armenia’s government approved a wide-ranging police reform plan earlier this month, which envisages the reorganization of the police force as a newly-empowered Ministry of Internal Affairs. Reformers hope that the restructuring the country’s police force as a separate ministry will improve the government’s oversight powers, as ministries report directly to the National Assembly. At present, the police force reports, instead, to the prime minister’s office. The Ministry of Justice, headed by Rustam Badasyan, has been charged with implementing the reform.
Prior police reform efforts in Armenia have been piecemeal and limited at best, despite drives by Pashinyan’s administration to make police reform a major government priority. Whether or not the government is able to successfully implement the reform plan remains uncertain. What the Gavar incident does make clear, though, is that systemic police reform is absolutely necessary if Pashinyan’s government hopes to continue charting Armenia’s path forward to democracy.
